Pulling together: Saratoga Springs community removes 21 large tires from Utah Lake
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- This photo shows Mark Lefevre, left, and Daniel Bratton, right, using a mini excavator to lift a tire out of Utah Lake in the Saratoga Springs area in March 2025.
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- Tires rest near a mini excavator after being removed Utah Lake in the Saratoga Springs area in March 2025.
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- A screenshot from drone video footage shows a team of volunteers who gathered to pull 21 large tires out of Utah Lake in the Saratoga Springs north harbor area in March 2025.
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- A group of tires sits on a sandy shore after being removed Utah Lake in the Saratoga Springs area in March 2025.
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- Tye Bratton, right, and his son Daniel, left, pose for a photo during a project to remove 21 tires from Utah Lake in the Saratoga Springs area in March 2025.
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- A tire is lifted from Utah Lake by a mini excavator in the Saratoga Springs area in March 2025.
Along portions of Utah Lake, preservation efforts such as the removal of carp and other invasive species aren’t uncommon. But for residents in a Saratoga Springs homeowners association, a recent cleanup project proved to be quite the undertaking.
Tye Bratton has lived in Saratoga Springs for 15 years in a community that sits along the northern shore of Utah Lake. The large body of water has provided countless hours of recreation and memories for Bratton and his family.
“It’s pretty awesome, especially because it’s just so close,” Bratton said. “It only takes us about 10 minutes to get our boat in the water during the summertime. And my entire family … from our youngest, (who’s) 12 years old, to our oldest, who’s 18, just loves being out on the lake.”
However, during recent low water years, he noticed an unlikely type of waste submerged under the lake’s murky waters.
“It just became really evident that we have a ton of tires out here,” Bratton said.
After flying a drone over the area of the lake, he noticed just how big the issue was.
“Maybe a good 40 tires out there total,” Bratton said.
It’s unknown how the tires ended up in the lake, but he believes they may have been placed there several decades ago as a way to hold up the dikes and protect the harbor from flooding.
“These tires are actually old enough to where we could not find dates on any of the tires,” Bratton said. “So, either they were manufactured like back in the ’50s and ’60s before they started doing the date code thing on tractor tires, or they just had worn away.”
Last August, Bratton began looking into what it would take to remove at least some of the tires from the lake.
One of the first orders of business was getting a permit from state government agencies including the Utah Lake Authority and the Utah Department of Natural Resources.
Bratton said the final thumbs up for the project was received about three weeks ago. With funding from their HOA, a total of eight residents, a mini excavator and a tractor with 200 feet of chain, the group braved the bone-chilling conditions earlier this month and removed 21 huge tractor truck tires from Utah Lake.
Some of them topped out at weighing over 1,000 pounds.
The effort, while gratifying, certainly presented challenges for how the team would pull the tires from the lake.
“Some of the tires, we just kind of crawled up with the machine, reached out (and) grabbed them, pulled them out, set them in the trailer and were able to take them out really easily,” Bratton said.
Other scenarios were more like a game of tug of war.
“At one point, we had four guys walking this chain out, hooking big old hooks onto the tire, and then using the tractor to pull it back, then shortening the chain and pulling it back and shortening the chain until we got the tire close enough to where we can reach out, grab it and set it on a trailer and get it out of here,” Bratton said.
They even used jet skis and scuba diving gear to get some of the tires out of the water.
In all, it took about 60 hours over four days to pull the tires out and transport them to the Fairfield landfill.
Bratton said his neighbors value the lake for its natural beauty and many amenities. With such passion for the lake among the community members, several residents didn’t hesitate in answering the call for help in removing the tires, he said.
“It was great just seeing the help pour in for the lake,” he told the Daily Herald.
The Utah Lake Authority expressed similar gratitude for the gesture.
Utah Lake Authority Communications and Events Manager Kelly Cannon-O’Day said the agency was thrilled that the Saratoga Springs homeowners association group took on the service project, displaying a sense of ownership.
“Utah Lake is everyone’s lake,” Cannon-O’Day said in a phone interview Thursday with the Daily Herald. “And them being able to take pride in it and wanting to make it better is just really, really wonderful, and we are so grateful to their efforts.”
Bratton said a future goal is to round up another group of volunteers to collect the remaining tires that are still lodged in the lake.
In the meantime, he hopes others will also feel compelled to take part in preserving Utah Lake, whether that involves picking up trash along the Utah Lake Shoreline Trail or bigger projects.
“Just to keep the lake healthy and make it the crown jewel that we think it is,” Bratton said.
